"Trusted Priest Abused Boys"

Rutland & Stamford Mercury
January 23, 2012

http://www.stamfordmercury.co.uk/news/trusted_priest_abused_boys_1_3447619

A priest from Staffordshire perpetrated a catalogue of sexual abuse against young boys who were in awe of his "revered and trusted" status within the community, a court has heard.

Jurors at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court were told that Alexander Bede Walsh abused eight boys while working at Roman Catholic establishments in Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Coventry between 1975 and 1994.

Walsh, of Church Lane, Abbots Bromley, near Rugeley, Staffordshire, denies a total of 27 offences of indecency, buggery and indecent assault.

Opening the case against the 58-year-old, prosecutor Robert Price alleged that one of the victims was abused after being plied with alcohol during what purported to be a private communion ceremony.

Mr Price told the court that Walsh was arrested and interviewed in 2006 after two men contacted the police to claim they had been abused in Coventry when they were children.

Further complainants came forward between 2008 and 2011, said Mr Price, who told the jury: "Slowly but surely the picture became clear as the investigation moved forward. That picture was a picture of repeated, serial, predatory sexual abuse of eight boys committed over a period of several years.

"The defendant was a Roman Catholic priest who worked in various schools and parishes throughout the Midlands and in our county, Staffordshire.

"The prosecution's case in a nutshell is this - we say that he sexually abused no less than eight young boys and that abuse, we say, took place in the 1970s, the 1980s and in one particular instance in the 1990s.

"He was able to perpetrate that abuse because his respected and indeed revered position with the Roman Catholic Church allowed him to have access to young boys, and to groom them and manipulate them before sexually abusing them."

The trial was adjourned until Tuesday.